


Pass the Blues

by AnonymousSpacePrince



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - High School, Internal Conflict, M/M, Pining, Post-Break Up, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-24 15:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16178186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousSpacePrince/pseuds/AnonymousSpacePrince
Summary: Instead of Steve, Bucky calls his ma and tells her the good news. The pride and praise she bestows upon him in return go a long way in stopping Bucky from imagining what Steve would say if it were just a few weeks ago.Five times Bucky can't decide what he wants, and one time the universe helps him figure it out.





	Pass the Blues

**Author's Note:**

> this is the 13th stucky fic i've started and the first one i've finished, but at least i finally finished something
> 
> i was in a writing slump for a little (long) while, but i think i've finally gotten back out of it. it's really nice to have written something i feel proud of again
> 
> title is from divine intervention by taking back sunday
> 
> eta: oh yeah, this is my 50th posted work!

i.

    A month after, Bucky gets a job. Not working under the table part-time at his uncle's mechanic shop, but a real job. It's a paid internship program that he failed to get into the year before, and when he gets his acceptance email, he shouts his excitement and throws his hands in the air.

    His second-nature impulse is to call Steve to tell him the news, and Bucky abruptly sobers, his fresh joy draining away to be replaced with a stinging feeling of regret.

    Bucky clenches his teeth tighter and tighter until his jaw creaks, and tells himself that he made the right choice. It's far too late to start feeling uncertain, so he does the only thing he can do, and pushes down the doubt, the bitterness, the touch of sorrow, and forces the smile back onto his face, forces it to reach his eyes.

    Instead of Steve, Bucky calls his ma and tells her the good news. The pride and praise she bestows upon him in return go a long way in stopping Bucky from imagining what Steve would say if it were just a few weeks ago.

 

ii.

    In late September, Bucky wakes up in the middle of one night from a dream that exemplified the phantom life he could be living with Steve right now, if not for the choice he made months ago.

    It'd been so simple. He and Steve had just been walking through the park, holding hands, laughing, stopping at random to tug each other in for sweet kisses.

    Bucky feels his insides twist up as he acclimates to reality, and his chest starts to ache.

     _You're such a fucking idiot_ , he thinks to himself, and then, fiercely, intentionally, he counters, _no, I did the right thing_. It's impossible to believe with the way he feels like he's missing a part of himself, but he lays back down and turns over, closes his eyes and repeats it over and over in his head, drowning out his own disbelief.

    As soon as he starts to fade towards sleep, Bucky's self-inflicted guard slips back down and his brain fills up at once with fantasies of happiness and Steve.

    He can't help it, can't fall asleep through it, so Bucky rolls onto his back and grabs his phone from his nightstand. He squints as he turns the brightness down as low as it can go, and then he pulls up Instagram.

    Bucky types in Steve's handle from memory, and he stops short when Steve's account doesn't show up. He checks for typos, but there are none, and Bucky's eyes widen. He's not sure if Steve changed his handle, deleted his account, or blocked Bucky, but he has a sinking feeling regardless.

    Bucky switches over to his spam account. He never uses it and it doesn't have any identifying features, so Steve wouldn't know about it. Again, he types Steve's handle into the search, and this time, Steve's account pops up right away. Bucky feels a stab to his gut, and he has no idea if it's from the knowledge that Steve blocked him or from Steve's new profile picture, which Bucky hasn't seen before now. Bucky was in his old one, so it makes sense.

    Bucky stares at the search result for a long moment in silence before he finally taps into Steve's profile.

    There are a handful of new pictures from the past few months, but Bucky finds himself scrolling right past them as he notices that every picture he was in has disappeared.

    He shouldn't have expected anything different, _wouldn't_ have, if he'd given it any thought before. Still, it stings, and Bucky feels a little tremor start in his hands as he scrolls further down and sees no trace of his impact on Steve's life. It hurts deep, even though Steve had every right. It hurts _bad_ , and Bucky thinks if he didn't feel so numb, he might cry.

    Bucky had deleted all of his pictures with Steve right after he'd broken up with him, when he was feeling sure. Deleted them from his phone, his laptop, his own Instagram. A ton of only copies, down the drain forever. Now, he regrets it so deeply, so viscerally, he'd give his left arm for a way to undo time. Now, all his memories with Steve are gone, and there are no new memories to be made.

    He regrets opening Steve's Instagram. He regrets so much.

    Bucky throws his phone to the carpeted floor and sighs heavily. He turns over and flicks on his lamp as he sits up, knowing full well he's not gonna get another wink of sleep tonight.

 

iii.

    After that night, checking Steve's Instagram becomes somewhat of a habit. A bad, bad habit. Bucky thinks he'd probably be better off developing a taste for cigarettes.

    Nonetheless, every few days or weeks, Bucky pulls up Steve's Instagram when nobody is around. Either to look for new photos, or to go back and look at the old ones, from when he knew Steve, or just to see his face in general.

    Bucky knows it's desperate, and pathetic, and probably bordering on creepy, but he can't help it. It's his only connection to Steve, whom he's having a harder and harder time convincing himself he doesn't miss. At this point, he's accepted that he misses Steve and switched gears to constantly reminding himself that missing someone doesn't always mean wanting them back. It's not that he regrets leaving Steve, he tells himself, he's just mourning their relationship. And sometimes reminiscing helps with mourning.

  
    The Instagram habit dies hard and fast on October sixth.

    Bucky's tired after a long day of work and wishing he had someone's shoulder to lay his head on. He thinks about Steve, and pulls out his phone.

    He switches to his spam account. He types in Steve's handle. He clicks the profile. He stops dead and swallows, the air getting stuck in his throat halfway. He starts to feel too hot and too cold at the same time, his heart picking up and racing.

    Bucky taps the newest picture to see the full post, and his stomach turns. In it, Steve's laughing as some other guy kisses his cheek. Some total stranger Bucky has never fucking seen before. Bucky feels sick, and sad, and kind of angry, but mostly, he feels kind of like he's shaking apart inside. A part of him wants to throw his phone at the wall, but he's not the right kind of upset for that. Instead, he just lets it slip out of his hand and fall to the ground.

  
    Bucky makes it two weeks before he's so sick with curiosity that he gives in. Nerves start to light up in his chest and fingertips as he types. He holds his breath as he pulls up Steve's profile, and then he exhales sharply in surprise. There are no new pictures of the guy, and in fact, the original one has been deleted like it was never there. Bucky feels bone-deep relief, and he hangs his head.

 

iv.

    For a number of months, Bucky's at a standstill. He knows he misses Steve, thinks he really fucked up when he broke up with him. He can't come back from that, he knows it, and even if there was a chance in hell (he imagines there is, even though he doesn't believe it), he's not certain. He's long given up trying to convince himself he doesn't miss Steve, but he's told himself he's just mourning, doesn't really regret his decision, for so long that he doesn't actually know if it's the truth or not.

    He couldn't miss Steve any more if he'd been a physical part of Bucky that was removed, and yet, Bucky can't figure out whether he wants Steve back or not. A big part of him shouts, _you do! God, you do!_ , every time he thinks about it, but the grounded part of him refuses to ignore that he doesn't know for sure. And until he does know for sure, he can't do anything.

    If he told Steve he wanted him back, and somehow, miraculously, Steve accepted that, and then Bucky figured out he didn't want that after all and had to hurt Steve all over again, he'd have to spend the rest of his life hating his own guts, and he can't do that.

    So, Bucky waits.

  
    Towards the end of April, all the local schools are preparing, along with much of the larger high school world, for prom.

    Bucky, already being graduated, watches from the sidelines as all of his old friends from school pick their outfits and ask their dates, and as the excitement for the event builds and builds.

    On April 27th, the two biggest high schools in the area both have their proms. By the next evening, Bucky's Instagram feed is 40% prom pictures. He's not close with any of his old school friends, but he feels fondly seeing the fun they had, and he makes sure to like all of their posts about it.

    Bucky's scrolling through his feed while he eats dinner that night when he comes across Natasha Romanoff's prom post for the first time. It catches his interest at once, because there's Steve in the first photo, standing on the opposite side of Natasha as their other friend, Sam. Steve's dressed to the nines and grinning broadly, and Bucky's chest starts aching. A classic black suit, clearly tailored to his body, paired with a bright yellow tie that somehow, incredibly, works.

    Bucky can envision himself with crystal clarity, tying the tie around Steve's neck and then pulling him into a playful kiss by it. Telling him how drop-dead, unbelievably, intensely gorgeous he is in that suit.

    The fantasy makes Bucky feel as warm as the reality makes him feel cold.

    He scrolls slowly through the rest of the photos. Though there are a few pictures of Natasha with other friends, most of them are similar to the first, just Steve, Natasha, and Sam. It's clear they went as a group, and Bucky's torn between relief that Steve didn't go with a date, and regret that Steve didn't go with Bucky as his date.

    Mainly, the latter wins out. Bucky feels so much regret now, that he wasn't there for Steve's prom, that he wasn't the lucky son of a bitch that got to walk in with Steve on his arm and keep him there all night. He regrets not being in the pictures, regrets not smiling with Steve pulled in close for their own picture. He regrets not slow-dancing with Steve in a themed-up, crowded hotel ballroom.

    He wars with himself for a few moments with his thumb hovering over the post. On the one hand, he doesn't know what Steve might think if he knew Bucky liked pictures of him, but by the same token, there's at least a 0.001% possibility that Steve will see that Bucky liked pictures of him, and then reinsert himself in Bucky's life so Bucky doesn't have to do it and risk fucking it all up. On the other hand, as well, he _did_  intend to like all his old friends' prom pictures, so it'd be unfair of him to exclude Natasha just because she happened to go to prom with Bucky's ex. After another second of hesitation, Bucky double-taps the photoset.

 

v.

    Two months after prom, Steve's class graduates. Bucky watches the video Steve posted of his walk across stage about a million times, grinning like an idiot despite being all too aware that he has no right to be proud.

    He wishes to all hell he'd been there in person, standing on his chair and cheering loud enough for Steve to be embarrassed and secretly pleased. Wishes he was there to hug Steve as soon as he got off stage, kiss him and congratulate him and spin him around obnoxiously and show off his newly graduated boyfriend. Wishes he could've taken Steve out to dinner that night, and then taken him home, to bed, to show him just how proud Bucky is of him.

    It's starting to kill him, Bucky's pretty sure, just how much he always aches from Steve's absence. It's becoming clearer and clearer to Bucky that he should've been there all along— to celebrate his internship with Steve, to take him to prom, to watch him graduate. And for the countless hours they would've spent together amid all that. Every moment he's missed with Steve since the breakup is worth mourning. Every time he could've kissed Steve's soft lips, looked into his pretty blue eyes, told him just how much he means to Bucky.

    Staring unseeingly at the video still playing on repeat, it's all too obvious. Bucky's thoughts align, all the regret and dismay and confliction and confusion straightening into something that makes perfect sense, and Bucky could strangle himself to death as it washes over him.

    Leaving Steve is, one hundred percent, without question, the biggest mistake Bucky's ever made. If missing Steve felt like missing a piece of himself, this feels like a black hole opening up inside of him.

    He's known all this time, known damn well how he felt, but he was too stubborn and afraid to let himself accept it. Even now, knowing full well that chest-hollowing melancholy like this just doesn't exist for people who are meant to stay in the past, Bucky keeps going back and forth with himself, trying to make himself believe that he's wrong, that acting on what he's feeling would be a mistake.

    A fight-or-flight impulse starts to kick in, making Bucky's heart rate kick up a couple notches as his thoughts whirl around each other like carousel horses trying to catch up to one another. It's a maddening loop he can't get out of, but he really, really wants to.

    Bucky backs out of the graduation post and looks over Steve's whole profile, wishing to all hell their old pictures were still in place. He misses the sight of them sharing company, the proof that once, they really were together.

    A bright idea strikes out of left field, and Bucky leaves Instagram and opens Facebook instead.

    He types in Steve's name, and to his surprise, Steve's profile shows right up, meaning he didn't block Bucky here. Warmth blooms a little in Bucky's chest, and he clicks through in a hurry, hopeful.

    Sure enough, as he scrolls through Steve's photos, eventually he gets to the ones of the two of them. There are tons. Photos of them laughing together, taking dumb selfies, photos they took of each other; from the most recent snapshots of domesticity all the way back to when they were thirteen and only pining, clueless best friends.

    By the time Bucky's finished looking through them all, half an hour has passed and his eyes are filled with tears. He knows exactly what he wants.

    Only, now that he knows exactly what he wants, he doesn't know how to go about getting it. He doesn't want to hurt Steve again, and doesn't want to fail, and it all just seems too risky. _You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take_ , Bucky's conscience offers, and he rolls his eyes at the cliché and it's ironic accuracy.

    He's definitely more likely to get Steve back if he tries than if he doesn't, he knows that. But what Bucky wants is to get his love back, so they can both be happy. He wants to apologize to Steve and tell him what an idiot he now knows he was, show Steve how sorry he is and how much remorse he feels until hopefully, eventually, Steve can forgive him. And he wants to show Steve all the love he deserves, the love Bucky took away without explanation; he wants to give it back and help to heal the wounds he inflicted. And he's afraid that he might not be able to make Steve see all that, and believe that it's the truth.

  
    Bucky spends the rest of the day writing letters to Steve in his head, but never types a word of them out. He comes up with dozens of things that would probably be great to say, but then he lets them slip away into oblivion. When it comes down to it, he's paralyzed, because no matter how much his chest is aching with want, this is one unknown that Bucky can't work up the courage to throw himself into.

    When the late night comes around, Bucky cries angry, defeated tears for longer than he can help before he falls asleep, exhausted.

 

+1

    Two weeks after that, fate deals Bucky a lucky card.

    He's tired and downtrodden, on his way home from a long Tuesday of work, and he makes the spur-of-the-moment decision to stop into a diner a few miles from his apartment. He just wants a nice, hot meal and a cold soda, and he doesn't think that, at least, is too much to ask.

    As it turns out, he gets more than he asked for.

    Walking into the small diner, Bucky's eyes naturally scan the space, and when he meets familiar, owlish blue eyes from across the room, Bucky learns that time seeming to slow down in moments like these isn't a made-up movie trope. Despite it feeling like there's an Olympic gymnastic event going on in his chest, the moment seems to stretch on forever.

    Until Sam, who's sitting across from Steve, turns around and says, "oh, hell no," loudly enough for Bucky to hear it clearly from across the distance. He's certain Sam meant him to.

    Steve looks away from Bucky, draws Sam's attention and says something to him that Bucky can't hear. After a moment of apparent debate, Steve stands and begins to walk towards Bucky.

    Now Bucky feels paralyzed for real, and he just stands statue-still as Steve approaches him. Once they're a couple feet apart, Steve stops.

    "Hi," he says warily.

    Bucky swallows. "Hey, Steve."

    Sam waits exactly that long to get up, march over, and insert himself between Steve and Bucky, literally, crossing his arms and fixing Bucky with a glare so dangerous Bucky feels a little burned. He knows he deserves it.

    "Sam—" Steve begins to protest, but Sam turns a look on Steve, and then goes back to glaring at Bucky.

    "Not, on, my, life," he says, enunciating each word with deliberate intent.

    Bucky takes a small step back, trying to show that he means no harm. "I'm not trying to cause any trouble, Sam," he says.

    "You're here, you're causing trouble," Sam says, ruthless.

    "Steve," Bucky tries, but Sam steps further in front of him.

    "Nope."

    "Please just let me talk to him for a second," Bucky says. He doesn't know what he'd even say, but he's desperate for the chance to say something.

    "Nope," Sam repeats, cold.

    Bucky's shaking, burning with the desire to shove Sam aside, tell him to fuck right off and let Steve make his own decisions, but Steve isn't moving from behind Sam, isn't looking up from the floor. Bucky knows there's nothing he can do here without making things worse, so he gives a little nod, turns, and walks right back out the door.

    Tears start stinging at his eyes from the second his back is to the diner, and Bucky walks to his car, feeling defeated and powerless. When he gets there, he impulsively raises his fist to punch, needing to get his feelings out somehow, but he stops himself with his knuckles an inch from the window. Instead, he presses his hand to the glass and his forehead to his hand and takes in a deep, shaky breath.

    "What did you want to say?"

    Bucky jumps and spins to face Steve, wiping at his eyes as he does. "Jesus, you scared me."

    Steve crosses his arms and looks Bucky in the eye, guarded.

    "I don't know what I want to say," Bucky admits, pushing a hand up through his hair. "There's a lot I want to say," he corrects himself, "but I don't know how to say it."

    "Well, you better figure it out fast," Steve says. "Sam's only gonna be able to restrain himself for so long."

    "What is he, your guard dog?"

    The words just slip out, and Bucky regrets saying it even before Steve's gaze hardens fractionally.

    "Yeah, well, he watched me recover from getting my heart broken," Steve says, false-casual. "It wasn't pretty. Can you blame him?"

    Bucky hangs his head and swears. He wants to punch himself in the face. "You should just punch me right in the face," he tells Steve, meeting his eyes again.

    "I'm not gonna do that," Steve says.

    "I'd deserve it."

    "Maybe," Steve says. "But I don't want to punch you."

    Carefully, Bucky asks, "then what do you want?"

    Steve shifts his weight to one foot, his posture softening just slightly. "I wouldn't mind an explanation," he says.

    Bucky nods. "I can do that."

    A car pulls into the parking lot, and Steve takes a small step closer to Bucky to get further out of its path.

    Steve's looking at him expectantly, but Bucky isn't sure where to begin. There's so much he wants to say, and a lot of it, he's afraid to say. Steve raises an eyebrow, so Bucky leads with what he thinks might be the most important thing. "I'm sorry," he says. "You didn't deserve to be hurt the way I hurt you, you have to know that."

    Steve shifts; Bucky sees his jaw tense.

    "At some point I started overthinking everything, and then I..." Bucky takes a breath. "I kept overthinking until I didn't know what was real and what was paranoid bullshit. I guess I was afraid that something was destined to go wrong because it seemed too perfect, and then I convinced myself that it had already happened even though it didn't." He sighs. "I don't really know what I was thinking, honestly. I wish I did.

    "But you didn't deserve it. I hate that I hurt you. I wish I could go back in time and fix it," Bucky finishes, growing quiet.

    "Wish you could go back and un-hurt me, or...?"

    Bucky swallows thickly. His heart is beating hard. "If I could undo it all, I would."

    Steve stares off at the busy street beside the diner for a moment, and then he looks at Bucky. His eyes are shiny with emotion, but not tear-brimmed. "I don't know what to say to that," he says.

    Bucky nods. "I understand."

    There's silence for a long moment, while Steve looks back at the cars and Bucky looks at Steve.

    Bucky decides to ask the only question that really matters. "Could you ever trust me again?" Quickly, he amends, "would you want to?"

    Steve's Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. He meets Bucky's eye again. "Maybe," he says. "I think so."

    Bucky's fluttery heart beats even faster at that. "Yeah?"

    "I still love you," Steve says.

    "I still love you too," Bucky tells him.

    If they were in a movie, Bucky thinks, this is where they would fall back into each other, professing their immortal love and promising to never part again; throw past pain to the wind and go right back to where they were before. The sky would probably open up in a sudden rain shower, and they'd share a passionate, teary kiss in the middle of the soaking parking lot.

    But this is real life, and even without the idyllic dramatics, Bucky's heart feels like it's soaring for the first time in months.

    "It'll take some time," Steve says. "But we can take it slow, figure out where to go from here. If that's what you want."

    "Yes," Bucky breathes. "Fuck, yes, I want that."

    Steve nods. "Okay."

    "Can we go somewhere?" Bucky asks. "Together?"

    "When?"

    "Right now?" Bucky tries.

    "I can't just abandon Sam," Steve says.

    "Well, not with that attitude."

    The corner of Steve's mouth twitches, but he keeps himself from smiling. "I'm serious."

    "He could... come too?" Bucky offers uncertainly.

    This time, Steve lets a small smile show. "How about tomorrow?" He suggests.

    "Okay," Bucky says. "I can wait that long."

    "Good," Steve says.

    They stand there for a little while in silence, just looking at each other, until Steve asks, "what?"

    "I really wanna kiss you," Bucky tells him truthfully.

    Steve shifts. "Will you settle for a hug for now?"

    "Happily," Bucky says.

    Steve steps forward, into Bucky's space, and Bucky pulls him into a close embrace. Steve smells familiar, like pine and sweet flowers and lime shampoo, and Bucky closes his eyes and breathes it in, thanking whatever higher power that he doesn't have to miss this anymore.

    He feels Steve relax against him, letting out a soft sigh as he pillows his head on Bucky's shoulder.

    Steve's arms are wrapped tight around his back, and Bucky thinks for this moment, it's better than a kiss. There's nothing like having Steve in his arms.

    When they pull apart, minutes have passed, and both of their eyes are damp.

    "I better get back inside so Sam can try to talk some sense into me," Steve says.

    Bucky frowns.

    Steve smiles. "Don't worry," he says. "I won't let him."

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: i originally wrote a really dark, unhappy alternate ending to this. i toyed with the idea of using it as the original ending and then posting this one as an alternate, but i didn't have the heart, so i went with my original happy ending plan and i'm leaving out the dark one altogether
> 
> i only gave this one last read-through after making most of the final adjustments and corrections (talk about character development), so if i missed any mistakes, point them out!


End file.
